The Linguistic Status of The Faroese Language

Faroese is an Insular Nordic language spoken as a native language of people in the Faroe Islands and Faroe immigrants in other countries such as in Denmark. Faroese is closely related to Icelandic and West Norwegian dialects, however, the Faroese language has a distinctive character that makes it possibly a little bit more complicated than any other languages.

The Faroese language is one of the most important aspects of Faroese cultural identity. Although the world continues to speak English as the universal language, Faroe Islanders are busy preserving the importance of the Faroese language.

The population has a high percentage of well-educated individuals, and local schools together with the University of the Faroe Islands are providing practical teaching about Faroese and Nordic languages as well as literature. Hence, this could be a good contribution to the preservation of their national identities.

The Faroese and Icelandic languages may have similarities in print or words in that Icelanders can read most Faroese, and vice versa. However, when it comes to accents, it is completely different. Icelanders do not understand spoken Faroese but the locals understand the most part of the Icelandic language. Perhaps, this can be explained by the fact that the locals have a greater exposure to Icelandic language than Icelanders do to Faroese language, which is very likely the case. In addition, Faroese differs considerably from the other Nordic languages in its phonological system; and thus, it is not easily understood by the others.

Speakers of the East Nordic languages such as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian may be able to speak and understand each other's languages. Meanwhile, the West Nordic languages, Icelandic and Faroese are similarly coined but significantly different.

Although these five Nordic languages are all derived from Old Norse, which the early Norwegian settlers brought with them, all of these languages have developed in different directions. Over the last century, Faroese has developed and expanded; it became the language of instruction in schools and in the Faroe government in the latter half of the 20th century.

It is true that when a foreign person travels to the Faroe Islands, it is very possible to get by with speaking English only, and thus, it means it is not a worry for people who want to travel in the islands. However, due to the high linguistic status of the local language to native speakers, it may be ideal for tourists to at least learn how to say or pronounce some helpful words during the entire travel.

One of the best examples of the national identity of a country is the way of how its people perceive and give importance to their language. Every language is different, and all languages have been experiencing a variety of situations, that affect its linguistic status in some way or other. The vital significance of the language to the nation's identity has been recovered, and should continue to be given importance in the future.

Right at this very moment, the status of English seems to be about as high as it has ever been, and it appears to be growing further. This may not last forever, and the relative status of languages is forever in flux.

If you are going to learn another language, then why not try learning Chinese? Chinese is comparatively harder than any other language in the world. However, you may be happy to hear that one fifth of the world's population speaks the Chinese language.